Gamescom expanding to Asia in 2020

Gamescom’s organisers have announced that they’ll be taking the event East next year with a convention that will specifically serve the Asian market.

Gamescom Asia is set to take place October 15 – 18, 2020. The event is going to be held at the Suntec Singapore Convention Center. The Asian event will be similar to the Cologne version in the sense that it’s going to be split between days for industry attendees, and days for public attendees.

The trade-only days for Gamescom Asia will take place October 15 – 16, 2020. The final three days of the event will be the ones open to the public. Koelnmesse has hopes that the event will allow Asian developers to find new partnerships as it does with developers in Europe. They also hope that the event will become the hub for international publishers seeking out the next big thing in games.

Gamescom’s organisers will be aiming to recreate most, if not all, of the experiences available at the Cologne event. This includes events such as cosplay celebrations and eSports live shows.

Gamescom is already the largest gaming event in the world, bringing together 370,000 people in August 2018, 31,200 of which were trade attendees. This year the Cologne event will return to Koelnmesse on August 20 – 24, 2019.

Unlike E3, Gamescom is a show that is geared more towards games developers, publishers, and other interested parties such as distributors or manufacturers. Much of the year’s biggest news for the industry is revealed at the event, given that it’s much more accessible to smaller developers than the platform holders and publishers which dominate E3, such as Microsoft, Ubisoft, and EA.

The Chinese games market has proven to be one of the largest in the world, with even more gamers and games companies emerging since the ban on games licenses was lifted. During Gamescom Asia it’s likely that more of these developers will get picked up by western publishers for distribution to a much larger audience, expanding the reach of these games to most of the world.